Our Creed

By KANIAN - POOM - KUNRAN
(Translated by P. N. Appuswami)

[Note: This poem is from PURA-NANOORU, one of the earliest Tamil anthologies. The author is Kanian-Poom-Kunran, which means the ‘Astrologer of the lovely, flower-clad hill’. The latter is apparently the name of the capital town of a small principality of olden days. One other poem of his has been included in the Sangham classics.]

Every city anywhere
Is our own native city;
And every man upon this earth
Is our kinsman by birth;
Evil and good
Never befall at all
At any other’s bid;
Even so, suffering and pain,
And deliverance therefrom.
Death is nothing new, or strange.
We cry not in joy,
‘Oh sweet, how sweet is life !’
Nor yet in disgust exclaim,
‘Life, alas, is evil, too evil!’
Like a frail and tiny craft
Caught in the rushing waters
Of a broad, wide river, 
Which swollen with the flood
Battles against the rocks
With a rumbling roar,
While the clouds above 
Flash their brilliant lightnings,
And pour down in showers
Myriad drops of the cooling rain,
Even so is the brittle bark of life
Swept irresistibly along
Upon its predestined course.
This, all this, we know,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt,
From the revelations
Of the seers who know.
Hence,
We praise not, not marvel at,
The eminent and the great;
Nor ever, ever, do we
Despise the lowly and the weak.